Heroes Are My Weakness(15)

As Livia peeled the paper from her red crayon, Annie took a chair catty-corner to her. Instantly, Scamp poked her head up over the side of the table and peered at Livia. “La . . . La . . . LA!” Scamp sang in her most attention-getting voice. “I Scamp, otherwise known as Genevieve Adelaide Josephine Brown, declare it a beee-u-tiful day!”

Livia jerked up her head and stared at the puppet. Scamp leaned forward, her wild curls tumbling around her face, and tried to peer at Livia’s artwork. “I love to draw, too. Can I see your picture?”

Livia, all eyes on the puppet, covered the paper with her arm.

“I suppose some things are private,” Scamp said. “But I believe in sharing my talents. Like my singing.”

Livia cocked her head curiously.

“I’m a wonderful singer,” Scamp chirped. “Not that I share my amazingly fabulous songs with just anybody. Like you and your drawing. You don’t have to share with anyone.”

Livia promptly pulled her hand away from what she’d drawn. While Scamp bent over the paper to study it, Annie had to rely on what she could see out of the corner of her eye—something approximating a human figure standing near a crudely drawn house.

“Fab-u-loso!” Scamp said. “I, too, am a great artist.” Now she was the one who cocked her head. “Would you like to hear me sing?”

Livia nodded.

Scamp threw her arms wide and began to sing a comically operatic version of “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” that always brought squeals of laughter from the kindergarten crowd.

Livia listened carefully, but she didn’t crack a smile, not even when Scamp began changing the lyrics. “Out came the moon and drank up all the grasshopper juice . . . And the itsy-bitsy underpants went crazy all over again. Olé!”

The singing made Annie cough. She covered it up by having Scamp embark on a wild dance. At the end, Scamp threw herself down on the table. “Being fabulous is soooo exhausting.”

Livia nodded solemnly.

Annie had learned it was best when dealing with children to stop when you were ahead. Scamp picked herself up and tossed her head of curls. “It’s time for my nap. Au revoir. Until we meet again . . .” She disappeared under the table.

Livia immediately ducked her head to see where the puppet had gone, but as she leaned forward, Annie rose, tucked Scamp out of sight in front of her, and crossed the floor to return the puppet to the backpack. She didn’t look at Livia, but as she left the kitchen she could feel the child watching her.


LATER THAT DAY, WHILE THEO was out riding, Annie took advantage of his absence to carry the trash that had accumulated in the house out to the metal drums that sat behind the stables. On her way back to the house, she looked toward the empty swimming pool. An unsightly collection of frozen debris had accumulated on the bottom. Even in the heart of the summer, the water around Peregrine Island was frigid, and she and Regan had done most of their swimming in the pool while Theo preferred the ocean. If the surf was up, he’d toss his board in the back of his Jeep and head toward Gull Beach. Annie had yearned to go with him but was too afraid of rejection to ask.

A black cat crept around the corner of the stable and gazed up at her through a pair of yellow eyes. Annie froze. An alarm bell rang in her head. “Get out of here!” she hissed.

The cat stared at her.

She dashed toward it, waving her arms. “Go! Go away! And don’t come back. Not if you know what’s good for you.”

The cat scurried away.

Out of nowhere, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away and went back into the house.


ANNIE SLEPT ANOTHER TWELVE HOURS that night, then spent the rest of the morning working on her inventory of the cottage living room, listing the furnishings, paintings, and objects like the Thai goddess. At the house yesterday, she’d been too busy to do any research, but she’d make time today. Mariah had never depended on dealers to determine the value of what she had. She’d done her homework first, and so would Annie. In the afternoon, she tucked her laptop computer in her backpack and hiked up to Harp House. Her muscles ached from their unaccustomed exercise, but she made it to the top with only one coughing spasm.

She cleaned Elliott’s office, including the ugly dark walnut gun cabinet, and washed yesterday’s dishes while Jaycie worried about Theo’s meals. “I’m not a very good cook,” she said. “One more reason for him to fire me.”

“I can’t help you out there,” Annie said.

Annie saw the black cat again and dashed outside without her coat to shoo it away. Later she settled at the kitchen table with her laptop, but the house’s WiFi system was password protected, something she should have anticipated.

“I always use the phone Theo gave me,” Jaycie said as she sat at the table, peeling some carrots. “I’ve never had to use a password.”

Annie tried various combinations of names, birthdays, even boat names with no luck. She stretched her arms overhead to ease her shoulders, stared at the screen, then slowly typed in Regan0630, the summer day Regan Harp had drowned after her sailboat capsized in a squall off the island’s coast. She’d been twenty-two, a new college graduate, but in Annie’s mind, she’d be forever sixteen, a dark-haired angel who played the oboe and wrote poetry.

The door flew open, and Annie whipped around in her chair. Theo Harp stalked into the kitchen with Livia slung under his arm.